that many of the old established congregations have doubled their numbers. Seeing with gratitude our holy religion progressing, released as we now are from the oppression of the penal code, and placed now on a level with our fellow-countrymen, it behoves us to attend to the striking change in our position. One of the first moving appeals made to us is from our poorest brethren in behalf of their uneducated children. The munificent endowments provided by our Catholic ancestors for the education of the children of the poor were seized by the civil power about three hundred years ago, and transferred to a hitherto unknown system of Christianity for which they were not designed. We cannot derive assistance for the education of the children of the poor from these ancient Catholic endowments; and we have no resource but feelingly and emphatically to appeal to you, dearly beloved brethren and children in Jesus Christ, the Catholics of England, for the means to enable us to give a good and religious education to the children of our poorest brethren '.

In perfect accordance with the tone here taken by the popish bishops, the Poor-School Committee, in one of their manifestoes put forth in their own periodical, are lavish in their praises of the "Catholic body" for having so kindly forgiven the injuries inflicted by Protestants, and so readily condescended, in token of their forgiveness, to avail themselves of the aid offered by the Committee of Council:

"Considering the treatment which British Catholics have received from the Protestant majority, considering the suspicions and jealousy naturally arising from such treatment, our clergy and the other managers of our schools have done themselves the highest credit by their alacrity in demanding-not for themselves, for that were poor praise, but for the children of their poor parishioners—those educational advantages which the State has at length thrown open to them. We own to a feeling of pride in this behaviour,—proving, as it does, both our zeal in the cause of education, and our willingness to be blind to the injustice and persecution of the past, provided that fair treatment be henceforward accorded to us

The great point for which at present the Romanists are contending, is the establishment of the principle of their claim; feeling certain that if this be once conceded, they will, by dint of craftiness and perseverance, in due time get all they want. The Vicars Apostolic loudly declare that they "calculate on Government assistance in building their schools, and on annual grants for maintaining efficient masters, without any attempt at State

2 Report, pp. 31, 32.

3 Catholic School, No. VI. p. 85.

interference with their spiritual independence;" they announce that this assistance has been "offered" to them by the Government; and they record their determination to accept the assistance so offered only on their own terms, in an official letter, addressed to the chairman of the "Catholic Poor-School Committee," as their organ of communication with the Government :-

"We recognise your committee as the organ sanctioned by us of communication with the Government; and we have every confidence that your committee, in your communications and negotiations with Government, for any Government grants, will be fully aware of our determination not to yield to the ministers of the day any portion, however small, either of our ecclesiastical liberty, or of our episcopal control over the religious education of the children of the poorer members of our flock"."

Nor are these demonstrations confined to their own communion. In their address of September 27th, 1847, the Vicars Apostolic say that "they desire to have intimated to Her Majesty's Government that they approve of the Poor-School Committee as their organ of communication on the subject of education;" and although it does not appear in what manner they gave effect to this "desire," the result is announced in the Report recently issued by the committee, in which they distinctly state that they are "recognised as the official organ of communication" by the Government®. That there was no backwardness in this recognition, appears from the fact, that long before Parliament and the public had any official knowledge, indeed any knowledge whatever, of the Minute by which the Committee of Council "unostentatiously" established the principle of giving State support to Popish education, the secretary of the Committee of Council, and the secretary of the "Catholic Poor-School Committee" were engaged in active correspondence. The minute in question, which did not see the light till nearly the close of the session of 1848, was concocted at the Council-office on the 18th of December, 1847; and on the 1st of March, 1848, we find the secretary of the Committee of Council answering certain queries put to him, in a letter dated February 29th, by the secretary of the "Catholic Poor-School Committee," whom, in his eagerness to do honour to his Popish correspondent, he dubs "Reverend," though, as Mr. Scott Ñas

4 Report, pp. 42, 43.

7 Report, pp. 29, 30.

8 Report, p. 7.

9 The Blue Book which contains it, bears no date; as far as we have been able to ascertain, it was presented to the House of Commons in August, 1848, immediately before the vote fo he annual education grant.

myth Stokes informs him in his reply, "a simple layman." One of these inquiries, as appears from the answer, was a modest request that their lordships of the Council-office should "anticipate the decision of Parliament upon their lordships' minute relating to Roman Catholic schools 1." To this request, indeed, their lordships felt it impossible to accede; still a point was gained on the part of the Poor-School Committee by the very fact of having opened an official communication; and a further letter was sent on the 7th of March, asking their lordships to accord at least "the advantage of priority" to applications made to them from Roman Catholic schools before the minute had been laid before Parliament. Once more their lordships felt themselves constrained to declare their inability to comply; and, somewhat alarmed, it would seem, by the readiness of their new friends to let Protestant bygones be bygones, they instructed their secretary to "guard himself from the possibility of misconstruction" by an express protest against the assumption "that by continuing the correspondence he in any degree presumed to anticipate the decision of the House of Commons"." Still the correspondence continued, and another curious specimen of Popish modesty reached the Council-office on the 13th of July, when the secretary of the "Catholic Poor-School Committee" inquired:

"How far the probability of a grant towards building a school, augmenting the teacher's salary, or apprenticing pupil teachers, would be imperilled by the erection or employment of a room above the school as a place of public worship, or by the erection or employment for the same purpose of a room adjoining the schoolroom, and separated from it by a movable partition3?”

The secretary of the Council-office, finding the scaling-ladders thus applied to his citadel, defended himself adroitly by enclosing one of those convenient documents which constitute the chief ammunition of the Committee of Council on Education, to wit, an explanatory letter," in which the question is answered in the negative.

66

Notwithstanding the caution, however, which was observed by the secretary of the Committee of Council, the "Catholic PoorSchool Committee" made a public announcement of their expectations as early as March, 1848:

"The Catholic Poor-School Committee have reason to anticipate that Her Majesty's ministers, in applying to the House of Commons for a vote of money for educational purposes during the current year, will no longer propose to exclude Catholics, on account of their religion,

1 Catholic School, No. I. p. 8.

2 Ibid. p. 9.

3 Ibid.

from the benefits of the grant; and they feel deeply anxious that the Catholics of Great Britain should exert their best endeavours to prepare to take advantage of the occasion, and to secure for their poorer brethren that share in the national bounty to which their numbers and necessities justly entitle them.

"It has been computed that one-fifteenth part of the population of Great Britain may be stated to belong to the Catholic Church. Recent circumstances, demonstrating with a daily increasing force the frightful want of a sound training in the labouring classes, forbid the supposition that ministers will seek in 1848 a smaller vote for education than they obtained in 1847. Rumour increases the amount, and alleges, with every appearance of truth, that in the present year the premier will ask for a vote of 150,000l. for the encouragement of educational efforts. Of this sum, then, Catholics may fairly look to obtain one-fifteenth part, namely 10,000l. towards building and supporting schools *."

The fulfilment of this expectation took place "within the octave of the Assumption," a date specifically noted, with a view, no doubt, to impress Roman Catholics with the belief that the parliamentary education vote having passed during the period of the chief festival of the Virgin, was come to under the influence of their patroness, "the Queen of Heaven." The account given in the Report before us, of the overtures made to the Roman Catholics by the Committee of Council, is highly characteristic, and will be read with interest. After reciting the minute of the Committee of Council of December 18th, 1847, the report of the PoorSchool Committee thus proceeds :

"Nothing can be more straightforward and intelligible than these terms of Government aid to Catholic schools. The Catholic PoorSchool Committee appointed by the bishops for this very purpose, with others, is recognised as the official organ of communication. Such of our schools as receive aid will be open to inspection like the schools of all other religions; but the inspectors cannot be appointed without the

• Report, p. 52.

5 We gave this Minute in our last number (p. 134), but for the convenience of our readers we repeat it here :

"1. That the Roman Catholic Poor-School Committee be the ordinary channel of such general inquiries as may be desirable, as to any school applying for aid as a Roman Catholic School.

"2. That Roman Catholic schools receiving aid from the parliamentary grant be open to inspection, but that the inspectors shall report respecting the secular instruction only.

"3. That the inspectors of such schools be not appointed without the previous concurrence of the Roman Catholic Poor-School Committee.

"4. That no gratuity, stipend, or augmentation of salary, be awarded to schoolmasters or assistant-teachers who are in holy orders, but that their lordships reserve to themselves the power of making an exception in the case of training schools, and of model schools connected therewith."

concurrence of the Poor-School Committee, neither can they report upon the religious instruction.

"Priests teaching schools, if any such there should at any time be, cannot receive aid from the parliamentary grant, being in this respect in the same situation as Protestant ministers of all persuasions; but an exception may be made in favour of the Superior of a normal school. It is not unimportant to observe, that the exclusion from participation in the advantages of the grant extends to schoolmasters and assistantteachers who are in holy orders, and to them alone. There is not a word in the minute against religious teachers not in holy orders.

"The minute containing the above provisions was presented to Parliament in the course of the session of 1848, and within the octave of the Assumption in that year it was formally sanctioned by the vote of 125,000l. for the promotion of education in Great Britain. Thus, at length, after years of unjust exclusion, Catholics were, in the autumn of 1848, admitted to participation in the benefits of the national education grant.

Shortly after the Catholic minute had been sanctioned in the way recorded, Mr. Kay Shuttleworth, the secretary to the Committee of Council on Education, requested Mr. Langdale, the chairman of the Catholic Poor-School Committee, to meet him at the Council-office. This interview was held at the desire of the Lord President of the Council, and the general principles of the Government grants were then communicated to the chairman, who, at the time, took a written memorandum of them, of which copies were afterwards forwarded to the bishops and the members of the Catholic Poor-School Committee. This important document, which, it should be premised, refers solely to building grants, runs as follows:

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"1. In cases of leasehold property, either a bond will be required from the promoters of the school, or a clause inserted in the lease, that, in case of forfeiture of the lease by breach of covenants, repayment be secured of the grant of the Committee of Council.

"2. Legal trustees must be appointed with powers of renewal in case of death.

"3. Local management of the school to be in a committee composed partly of clerical and partly of lay members, whose authority will be limited to strictly secular education. Religious instruction, or where partly of a religious character, as in questions of historical controversy, the clerical members to be the sole authority. In cases of questions arising of a religious character, an appeal to be made to the Catholic bishop of the district. In questions purely secular, the Lord President of the Council will appoint as his arbitrator an inspector of Catholic schools, and the Catholic bishop of the district will appoint his arbitrator, and these will have power to appoint a third o.

"The Government object is of a civil character; for this reason

It may be observed that all the arbitrators must be Catholics. [Note of Report.]